But what does digital innovation look like? Is it a mobile app? Does it involve moving operations to the cloud? The world of digital innovation is immense. It can be as simple as opening a Twitter account or as complicated as reorganizing information technology (IT) across an agency.

The hard reality is that there isn’t one right answer to digital innovation in the public sector. But there are plenty of wrong ones. The seductive quality of today’s newest technology gadgets can lead organizations astray, leaving them with newer, faster tools with which to work through the same broken processes.

As a result, digital innovation can seem overwhelming, which is why GovLoop and Pegasystems have produced this guide to help public-sector organizations understand what smart, achievable digital innovation looks like. In these pages, you will see that innovation starts with people and process and then uses those changes as the springboard for outcome-driven technology adoption – the ultimate end goal for digital government.

If you take one thing away from this document – although we hope that you will take many things – it is that public sector organizations are on the verge of being able to take advantage of the enormous, transformative opportunities new technologies present. These technologies will allow you to:

Engage with your customers more effectively.

Simplify your processes to be more efficient.

Change and adapt to shifts in budget level, regulation or technology.

It just takes a bit of strategic restructuring. The future is very bright for those willing to step out of the antiquated models of IT, customer service and business processes. Throughout this guide, we’ve highlighted cases of organizations that have made changes that appear small on the surface, but which have had a monumental impact on customer service and efficiency.

To us, these organizations look almost Jetsons-like in their ability to operate in such a forward-thinking, futuristic manner. We hope this guide will help your agency take the first steps toward making the ideas of tomorrow the solutions of today.